Riesling has taken to “killing” various toys which she then presents to me for both breakfast and dinner. I can only imagine that this is her idea of a trade. :) These antics are ramped up significantly when, say, beef stew is added to her ordinary kibble. We decided to capture it on video for your enjoyment… how can this not make you smile?

Our first day of waterfall hiking was a bit of a wash… literally. We knew it was going to be wet/muddy because it had rained for a full week before our visit to the NC mountains, but we were very much hoping it wasn’t going to rain all day on Saturday.

As you can see from this very sad schnauzer face, it did, in fact, rain and this photo was taken before the torrential downpour that was our mile hike back to the car at Linville Falls.

you wouldn’t mind carrying me all the way back to the car, right?

The weather cooperated on Sunday and we were able to do more hiking and stay relatively dry. Riesling spent much of her time in the car like this…

She did do about 4 miles of hiking with us, including this short hike to an unnamed falls off FR 63 near Craggy Gardens.

I’ll be posting more photos of the 10 waterfalls we photographed this week. Visit the Flickr photoset of our trip for updates and check out some of the other waterfalls we’ve photographed here.

Right after we got back from Peru, we agreed to pup-sit our friend’s mini schnauzer, Pasha, for the weekend. Riesling doesn’t particularly enjoy the extra attention, but they do enjoy tugging on the rope together.

(grrrrrr!)

Sometimes I have to break things up and start over. Clearly, when I have the rope, I also have everyone’s full attention!

(my pants are rolled up due to bug bites, not a fashion preference)

Inevitably, Riesling wanders off by herself to chew on bunny.

(what? bunny is tasty.)

We will be stuck inside for the next few days as it’s supposed to be in the upper 90s which means shorter walks with pup; she looks like this when we get home…

Her collar is on because she can’t stop licking her shaved front leg from when they put in the IV for her dental cleaning two weeks ago. So she will be silly looking until that heals up.

Thanks to some creative driving by my fearless father-in-law and the separate security line for AA Gold status passengers at JFK, we made it onto our flight this afternoon with just a few minutes to spare. Whew!

So, we are now home with a very happy (and relaxed) schnauzer…

The weather was sunny and we had a great time this weekend: visited with several family members, did a bit of wine tasting and ate some tasty pizza in NYC.

I will be posting more about the three wineries we visited later in the week once I get my notes in order and catch my breath from running through the entire length of JFK’s Terminal 8.

Riesling has been healing amazingly well and it’s becoming much harder (thankfully) to see her scars. We’ve come a long way from 60 staples, exploratory surgery and one broken rib, back to a healthy and active pup.

Thank God.

I have been taking periodic photos and it’s obvious how well she has healed in the five short weeks since mid-May.

on May 24, 6 days after the attack

on June 2, 15 days after the attack

this evening, June 23, 36 days after the attack

She just came back from a short stint at Camp Bow Wow and everything went just fine. We’ll probably head back to the dog park sometime this week to see how she handles other dogs around us.  I imagine it will be a harder adjustment for me than for her.

I spent the morning at Urban Ministries in Durham weeding their outdoor family area while Eric picked up a bunch of new plants, fruits and sunflowers at the farmer’s market in Raleigh. As soon as I got home, I was put to work helping Eric clean all the windows in the house, both indoor and out.

Now Eric is planting and I am trying to do laundry…

… if only a certain someone would move.

For those of you who keep up with me on Twitter and Facebook, you already know that our pup, Riesling, was attacked at the dog park on Monday afternoon.

After surgery to treat two large belly wounds and a broken rib followed by overnight care, she came home on Tuesday night and has been steadily feeling better. It’s been a crazy few days and I am still trying to wrap my head around the entire situation. The whole attack  lasted under 30 seconds but it felt much, much longer.

I took Riesling to have her drainage tubes removed yesterday and the vet who performed her surgery was happily surprised to see her wagging and active. He said that it was simply amazing that this is the same dog. She always manages to win people over, it’s not only her ears that make her charming.

At this point I think the worst part is the required recovery accessory.

We have one half of the living room set up with sheets and blankets all over the floor until her wounds heal up enough for her to climb stairs to the bedroom. We’ve also been sleeping downstairs with her on our futon mattress so the whole pack is together. She gets her surgical staples out next Thursday, so hopefully by then things will get back to normal.

My right hand was part of the carnage and I have about 10 puncture (bite) wounds in my thumb alone. Luckily, no stitches and the x-rays were negative but I did need a tetanus shot.

Thankfully, the woman who owned the dog that attacked Riesling is going to be paying us back for all the medical costs of Riesling’s surgery and post-op care, and it looks like both of us will make a full recovery.

This is a little late because I had some trouble figuring out how to edit movie files in Vista (thanks Microsoft). Anyway, I was finally able to splice together a few clips of Riesling’s adventure at the dog park on January 20th when Durham received a rare 3 inches of cold powdery white stuff.

Film footage courtesy of my brand new (orange!) Flip camcorder.

We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland! Eric quickly checked the weather hotline and learned that he had a snow day, which means he gets to stay home with me to watch Obama’s inauguration!

I put some cinnamon rolls in the oven and Eric took some photos… :)

After breakfast we took Riesling out for a good romp in the snow…

It took a while for all the little snowballs to melt off her beard and legs, but it was totally worth it. You can see more of our snowy photos on Flickr.